Time After Time
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: Kurt goes to the park every day to enjoy the sun and sketch in his journal, but something about his favorite routine doesn't feel the same anymore. One day, while contemplating why the sketches in his journal don't look the way they're supposed to, he meets a gorgeous man he can almost swear he knows from somewhere, but whose face he cannot place. Kurt H. Sebastian S.
1. Time After Time

**A/N:** _Written for the tumblr anon prompt #13 - "Kiss me" and I apologize ahead of time because I am more than sure this is not what you had in mind. Warnings will be vague so as not to give away the plot too much. Title comes from the Cyndi Lauper song Time After Time._

Kurt takes a seat on his park bench, and with a deep, relaxed sigh, he becomes one with the weathered wood beneath him. He opens his journal, pulls out his pencil, and starts to sketch. Okay, it's not _his_ bench, per se, but it's the one he sits at every day so it might as well be. Maybe he'll dictate in his will that after he dies someone needs to buy a plaque for this bench that says _Kurt Hummel Sat Here…A Lot._ Not that he ever has to fight for it, which always strikes him as odd because it's by far the best bench in the park. It's situated beside an ancient oak tree whose branches separate just so that it lets the rays of afternoon sun peek through while still shielding him from the bulk of their glare, keeping him comfortably cool. It's also in front of the duck pond, the perfect distance away so that overflow doesn't drench the ground beneath his feet. Various water fowl – ducks, geese, swans – walk their families past it, looking for spare crusts of bread. He forgot the stale loaf that he leaves by his front door today, like he did yesterday and the day before. It's probably molded by now. He'll toss it and wait for another one to go stale, but he hates wasting things.

It's strange how his mind has been wandering off on him lately that he can't even remember to grab a loaf of bread on his way out the door.

The temperature is warm for a start-of-spring day and Kurt invites it - he's getting sick of chilly weather - but the sun doesn't feel the way it used to. He can't explain the difference, but then who would he explain it to? He doesn't talk to his old friends anymore. No one calls. No one comes to visit. It bothered him once, but not so much now. He likes spending time alone.

Maybe it's because he's getting old, he thinks with a chuckle, but that can't be. He's only…

Kurt's head pops up from his drawing while he thinks. For some reason, he can't remember how old he is. He tries to do the math in his head, but he can't seem to remember the year. He chuckles again. It's such a weird feeling. It's not like it's waiting on the tip of his tongue to be spoken, or lingering in the back of his mind out of reach. It's gone. Completely gone.

What the hell is going on?

He shrugs it off. He's probably tired. He'll go to bed an hour earlier tonight. He looks back down at the sketch he's working on and frowns when he sees it.

Everything he's drawn looks like nonsense. He flips through the pages. Most of them are empty (this is a new book) but the used pages look the same - scribbled on, like by a three-year-old with a black crayon. Could he have grabbed the wrong book?

_Maybe this is a dream_, Kurt thinks with an anxious smile. That might explain the off sensation of the sun on his face. But on the bright side, if it is a dream, Kurt can conjure himself up a tall, handsome…

"Hello there."

_Jackpot_.

The voice comes out of nowhere, and now Kurt is almost fully convinced that he's dreaming. If it wasn't for the pain in his back, that's been developing slowly over time, twinging when he shifts to see where the voice came from, he'd be sold.

The man is backlit, a halo of sunlight surrounding his head, filtering into Kurt's vision so that Kurt can't make out the details of his face. But something in that voice sounded vaguely familiar. Kurt raises a hand to block the sun and get a better look.

"Do I know you?" Kurt asks. With his hand over his eyes he can make out better the man's sharply sculpted cheekbones, a slight slope of a nose, a brow furrowed in amusement, and moss green eyes that resemble a thought Kurt had a while ago when he…

When he what? What was he doing when he had that thought of green eyes like these? He can't recall.

"Occasionally," the man replies. He gestures to the bench. "May I sit?"

Kurt raises an eyebrow. He doesn't know why he's hesitant. Wasn't he thinking a second ago about a tall, handsome man? This man definitely fits that bill, and then some. But he smiles with a secret hiding on his lips and in his eyes. And those eyes, the way they look at him, like they know him, like they've seen him before, and not sitting on a bench in Central Park in the sun.

It's not the fact that this man is a stranger that bothers Kurt. It's the fact that he feels this man knows him, but like his age, _why_ he feels that way keeps ducking out of his reach.

"Be my guest," Kurt says, deciding to return to his journal. They're in a huge park, in a city filled with people. There is no way this guy is here for _him_.

"That's a wonderful design for a jacket you're working on there," the man says, glancing over at the journal open in Kurt's lap.

Kurt opens his mouth, ready to set the man straight, that this isn't his book, and this mess on the page isn't his sketch of a jacket, but Kurt looks down at the page and he sees it. It _is_ a jacket. Had it always been? That's what he was working on, but it was indecipherable chicken scratch before. Wasn't it?

"Is there something wrong?" the man asks, his brow pulling in the middle as he stares into Kurt's face.

"Uh, no," Kurt says quickly. "No, there's nothing wrong…I…" Kurt closes the journal and looks at the cover – brown leather, creased on the spine and worn where the oils from his hand have eaten into the material over time. "I thought I had grabbed the wrong book."

"So, that's not your sketch of a jacket?" the man asks, but Kurt knows by his tone that he's teasing.

Being teased by this man warms Kurt's whole body more than the failed sun.

"Yes, it is," Kurt says with a roll of his eyes. "It absolutely is. Thank you for the compliment, by the way."

"No problem," the man says. He reaches out for Kurt's knee, to pat it, but stops with his hand hovering in the air, then brings it back to his side.

"You know, it's been kind of a weird day," Kurt admits, looking at the hand that's no longer anywhere near his knee. "I've been forgetting a lot of things this morning."

"Oh?" When the man says it, he sounds disappointed.

"Yeah," Kurt laughs. "For a while, I thought I might be dreaming."

The man's green eyes – beautiful, expressive green eyes, clear and deep, surreal – seem filled with worry, but he smiles softly and says, "You know, there's a way we can check if you're dreaming or not."

Kurt tilts his head.

"How?" he asks.

The man leans in and Kurt mirrors the move, drawing closer, ready to hear the secret.

"Kiss me," the man whispers, and the words – those two little words – take Kurt's breath, and the next one, and Kurt's pretty sure three or four after that.

Time slows as Kurt decides what to do. He can't just kiss this guy. He's only known him about five minutes. But it's so nice to be flirted with. And there's such an allure to him, like he was made to match Kurt's specifications. Kurt doesn't exactly feel like he's meeting him. He feels like he's finding him. But how can he if they've never met?

Kurt is still not ruling out dreaming, or maybe a hallucination, but that doesn't mean he's easy.

"Find me here tomorrow," Kurt whispers back, letting his eyes drift down to the man's lips - a minor indulgence, "and we'll see."

The man licks his lower lip and Kurt bites his.

He may have whimpered as well. Kurt imagines those lips on his and his reaction to that is embarrassingly swift.

The man smiles.

"Then it's a date," he says, this time patting Kurt's knee lightly with a touch that sends shivers throughout Kurt's entire body, up so far as his brain, firing off with a hundred feelings, sounds, and images all at once, none that he can catch but all which feel important. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Kurt doesn't watch the man leave. That's not how he wants to remember him – walking away. He returns to his sketch, chewing on the inside of his cheek in thought, and making a few alterations – mainly to the model wearing the jacket. It's not a perfect rendering of this gorgeous man by any means, but with the way Kurt's memory keeps slipping through cracks and holes, he doesn't want to forget him. No, it's not a perfect picture of the man at all, but he can always improve on it tomorrow.

* * *

Sebastian stands from the edge of the bed, and with a long, last, wistful look back, walks out of the room. He closes the heavy door carefully behind him, not wanting the sound of the lock clicking to disturb Kurt in any way. Kurt is smiling, scribbling nonsense in his journal, biting his lower lip and giggling to himself. That's the way Sebastian loves to see his husband –so giddy, so hopeful.

"You know, you don't have to come tomorrow, Mr. Smythe," Dr. Stan, Kurt's neurologist, says. Sebastian huffs and gives the doctor an irritated once over. He's a stern, husky, greying man in a stiff white coat, always with a clipboard in his hands. The clipboard seems to be more of a prop since he doesn't ever refer to it or write anything on it. Sebastian knows the man's name, but he never bothers using it. In his head, he simply refers to him as Captain Fuckwad.

The doctor looks at Sebastian poignantly, waiting for him to agree, but he rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, well, you've been telling me that every day for the past year."

The neurologist sighs at Sebastian's response. It's the only one he ever gives.

"Your determination with regard to your husband's recovery is admirable, and talking to him is doing wonders in helping to improve his brain functions. I just want you to remember that his memory isn't going to come back all at once. This is a process. A little at a time."

"Your point?" Sebastian asks, grinding his teeth around the words.

"You see him for a few minutes, and then you stand outside this door and stay here for hours," the neurologist says, telling Sebastian this as if he doesn't know. "All day even."

Sebastian puts his hands on his hips and shrugs. It's a mannerism he adopted from Kurt, though Kurt looks way more intimidating when he does it than Sebastian.

"Where else would I be?" Sebastian asks. He feels like he's running around in circles. He knows that he has this same conversation to look forward to when he returns to see Kurt tomorrow. He can hardly wait.

"There must be something else you want to do with your life," the neurologist says. "You can come Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It'll be the same thing."

"Am I _bothering_ you?" Sebastian asks, his hackles rising, jumping on the defense. "Because if I am, I can always take my husband, and the money I spend for you people to treat him, to a different facility. One that doesn't badger me when I come to visit."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Smythe," the neurologist says, deeply apologetic and so sincere about it that Sebastian can't tell if the man is really sorry or if this is a good act. "Of course, you're not bothering us, and no, we don't want you to move your husband to a different facility, but not because of your money. We host one of the finest hospitals in the country for handling patients with his particular diagnosis. But as a doctor, I'm charged with making sure that the needs of the family are being met as well. _Your_ health is a concern to us, too."

Sebastian's rage extinguishes a degree and that irritates him. He _wants_ to be angry at this doctor. He's angry that it's been a year and Kurt still doesn't seem to be any closer to coming home than he did after the accident that zapped his long-term memory. He feels cheated out of that time that he can't ever get back.

These visits are all Sebastian has.

"He's my husband," Sebastian argues.

"But in an hour, he won't remember that you've been here."

Sebastian looks through the window at Kurt sitting on his bed, smiling as he draws in his journal. He runs his fingertips down the clear, double-paned glass, tracing around the profile of his husband's face.

"But _I'll _remember."


	2. If You're Lost, You Can Look

**A/N:** _Full title of this chapter is "If You're Lost, You Can Look, and You'll Still Find Me..." but FF won't let me put the whole thing xD So this is a follow up to the original "Time After Time". I couldn't just pull the omnipotent author trick and pull a happily ever after out of my butt, but I couldn't leave them in limbo either. I hope you're all satisfied with this as a quasi-ending. Still following the theme of the song, "Time After Time", and using the prompt "Kiss me". Warning for talk of anxiety, stress, memory loss, and mention of a hate crime._

Sebastian looks at Kurt the way new lovers look at each other – with hope and anticipation.

He also looks at Kurt the way old lovers look at each other – with reverence and longing.

But when Kurt looks at Sebastian, sometimes his eyes are empty, and it's like a searing hot poker ramming through Sebastian's heart.

Sebastian takes his pain one day at a time and considers himself lucky to have it, regardless of what progress (or lack thereof) Kurt makes. He could have lost Kurt all together. He could be visiting a grave day after day instead of a hospital room. At least Sebastian has his husband with him, in whatever form he takes.

Sebastian knows that some people in the world aren't as lucky, like the people who attend the twice weekly support group that Sebastian goes to. Parents, siblings, children, significant others – so many loved ones gone, so many lives cut short. So many heartbroken people at those Tuesday and Thursday night meetings, sitting in the classroom at the hospital, talking about the steps they take to feel halfway okay, the ways they find strength to get through their day, the guilt they carry for still being healthy or alive. When it's Sebastian's turn to share, when he describes the loneliness he feels, the madness of having the man he loves physically close enough to touch yet mentally so far away, they stare at him with watery eyes and wobbly smiles, most wishing they could have what he has. They wonder why them and not him, willing to trade their lives of sorrow for his life of struggle in a heartbeat.

Sebastian agrees. If he was in their shoes, he'd think the same way, but there are things that those envious people don't know.

Not all of Sebastian's visits with Kurt went smoothly.

When Kurt was first admitted to the hospital, Sebastian wouldn't leave his husband's side. He was determined to spend every second of his life and every cent of his trust fund helping Kurt recover. Kurt had to be put into a medically induced coma from the start until the swelling in his brain went away. Sebastian stayed with him, camped in a chair by Kurt's bedside, holding his husband's hand. He rarely ate anything that didn't come from the vending machine down the hall. He only left the hospital a handful of times to bathe and change his clothes. He didn't speak to the nurses who came into the room to check Kurt's vitals or his IV drip aside from the odd grunt _hello_. He couldn't be bothered. He wasn't there to make friends. He was waiting for his husband to come back to him.

The day Kurt came out of his coma and opened his eyes was the happiest day of Sebastian's life – or he _thought_ it would be. Sebastian had spent so much time with only his thoughts for company that he had everything planned out in his head, had already decided how things would go. Bed rest, some physical and occupational therapy, most likely a shit load of counseling, and Kurt would be ready to come home. Kurt had always been a quick healer. Nothing kept him down for long. With his fierce determination, Sebastian figured they were looking at Kurt staying in the hospital for a few month tops, then they would have their lives back. The neurologist tried to warn Sebastian that might not be the case. They didn't know yet the full extent of the damage, what residual effects there might be, but Sebastian found it hard to listen to those warnings when the only thing he could think of was taking his husband home.

_Get Kurt home and everything will be all right._

Sebastian was convinced that once he got Kurt back to familiar surroundings, things would fall back into place.

But the greeting Sebastian got from Kurt when he opened his eyes was terror. Absolute terror – eyes widening, breath catching, heart racing, body slipping into shock. When Sebastian tried to touch him, Kurt recoiled. After several long seconds of Kurt screaming himself hoarse, Sebastian was forced to leave, and Kurt had to be sedated. The doctor recommended reintroducing Kurt to his husband in small doses – one minute here, half a minute there. Time after time, Kurt would see Sebastian coming and immediately become frightened, until Sebastian's visits had him relegated to the hallway, staring in through the small, square window in the door.

No one understood Kurt's reaction to his husband. When Sebastian visited Kurt, Kurt saw a stranger, and for some reason he responded with fear. The doctors couldn't explain why Sebastian's presence triggered these panic attacks, but it did, which made Sebastian _persona non grata_ until they could find an answer. Somewhere in the middle of countless specialists performing scans and running tests, trying to solve the mystery, Kurt's recognition of Sebastian slipped away entirely, which meant Sebastian was free to visit, but Kurt didn't have a clue who he was.

Sebastian took advantage of it, stopping by every day to visit his husband, to talk with him, even if he didn't get any kind of response, any flicker of acknowledgment. Fear turned into tolerance, tolerance into acceptance, and eventually acceptance became curiosity. Kurt's neurologist, Dr. Stan, wasn't 100% correct when he said that in an hour Kurt wouldn't remember that Sebastian had been there. Something of Sebastian imprinted itself on Kurt with every visit. The more time Sebastian spent around Kurt, parts of Sebastian stuck in Kurt's memory, like his deep set eyes and his crooked half-smile. The doctors knew because of the doodles in Kurt's sketch book, repeated drawings of a particular man's eyes and smile, the images sharpening over time.

As Kurt's brain healed, the thought of Sebastian became clearer in that Kurt understood that Sebastian wasn't there to hurt him, even if he didn't know _how_ he knew. Old memories didn't necessarily return, but new ones were being created. With any luck, the doctors told Sebastian, a bridge would be built and those two sets of memories would collide.

Sebastian didn't like the choice of the word _collide_. It sounded dangerous, painful.

As it turned out, collide was the perfect word for it when it finally happened.

Shortly after Sebastian left from his last visit (where he plucked up the courage to ask his husband for a kiss, something he had never risked asking for before) – after he watched Kurt eat his dinner, take his evening meds, and climb into bed – the nightmares began. Kurt had experienced one or two in the past, nightmares that nearly knocked him out of bed and kept him awake for a week, scared of everyone, paranoid that anyone who came into his room was there to hurt him.

Because Kurt didn't just lose his memory in a random accident. He had been attacked. On the one afternoon in three years that Sebastian had been running late for their regularly scheduled lunch date, Kurt was beaten – herded onto a vacant trail and pummeled by teenagers armed with bricks.

Teenagers who had been targeting him for days, waiting to get him alone.

That's the reason why, doctors speculate, Kurt's memory doesn't extend past that afternoon in Central Park. In his brain, he's stuck there – has been for over a year – sitting on the bench where he and Sebastian usually met up, waiting for his husband to arrive.

And Sebastian does, every day, even if Kurt doesn't know it.

Dr. Stan assured Sebastian that the nightmares are actually a positive sign - a symptom of Kurt's brain firing back up, trying to fill in the gaps of the memories he had lost. It would open the door to other memories, non-violent memories, memories of family and home. Apparently, the worse the nightmares get, the more vivid, the more terrifyingly _real_, the better. It was almost morbid how elated the doctor seemed relaying that information to Sebastian, like Christmas had come at last, even if it came in the form of a huge spiked mallet hammering away at Kurt's brain.

Sebastian wants to share in the doctor's confidence, but it kills Sebastian to think of his husband that way – not necessarily the lingering memory loss, but the pain. The fear. Knowing that one night, the memory of that attack is going to rise up from wherever it's buried and hit Kurt full-force. He's going to relive it all, every wrenching minute of it, again and again until he can find a way to vocalize it, find the words to describe it. Then maybe he can find a way to defeat it and move on.

Sebastian has every intention of being there when it does.

Sebastian has no illusions anymore. He knows Kurt's journey will be long and difficult, but he has faith in his husband. Sebastian knows firsthand the strength Kurt Hummel possesses, what kind of a fighter he is. Kurt never took shit from assholes and bullies, not from the jocks that tossed him into dumpsters, not from the boy who assaulted him in high school, not from Sebastian, who made his life miserable for the better part of a year.

In life and in recovery, Kurt has already come far.

He is a strong, independent man, with more heart, more soul, more strength of purpose than anyone Sebastian knows.

That's what Sebastian sees when he looks at his husband.

Now two-and-a-half years to the day after Kurt was first admitted, Sebastian sits beside his husband on his bed and tries to see what _Kurt_ has seen every single day that he's been there.

_Central Park_. The grass green and freshly cut, the trees in full spring array, the cornflower sky, clear and nearly cloudless. Kurt always loved the quality of light at the beginning of spring more than any other time. He claimed it was softer, purer, better for drawing. That's why he went there every lunch hour to work on his sketches instead of to Jean-Georges – the French restaurant Sebastian would have preferred.

But because Sebastian loved Kurt, he ordered their lunches to go and met him there.

That park bench, bathed in sunlight, nestled beneath the blossoming trees, that's where Kurt goes to in his head, though in reality he's a patient at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. It's fall, and it's pouring rain outside.

Sebastian sighs as the rain picks up momentum and pounds loudly against Kurt's window. He flicks his wrist and glances at his watch. It's already a quarter past noon. Food services will be by soon with lunch, and a nurse will stop in with Kurt's afternoon meds. Sebastian pats Kurt's knee and stands, stretching his arms over his head, twisting at the midsection left and right to crack his stiff back. He takes a peek at Kurt's sketch book, balanced in his lap. Kurt bends over it, charcoal pencil scratching out the design for a suit that actually resembles a suit – and not just any suit, but the kind of suits Kurt designed when he worked at _Vogue_.

A job his boss Isabelle Wright assures Sebastian is waiting for Kurt whenever he's ready to go back.

Sebastian turns away from Kurt and his sketches, and walks toward the door.

Kurt's head pops up and he watches him.

"Se-Sebastian?" Kurt calls after him.

Sebastian turns back around and looks at his husband.

"Yes, gorgeous?"

"You're…you're not…are you leaving?" Kurt stops sketching, his hand worrying the pencil between stained fingers, twiddling it back and forth like a baton.

"No," Sebastian says. "I'm not leaving. I'm just going to get some coffee. Do you want something?"

Kurt nods with a slightly confused but thoughtful expression on his face. "I…I think so."

"Name it."

Kurt licks his lips nervously. He sets his sketchbook and pencil aside. His hands return to his knees, fingers wrapping around the joints, nails scratching at the denim on his legs.

"Kiss me?"

Sebastian walks slowly back to the bed with a smile on his lips, and gently presses his mouth against Kurt's. Kurt's breath catches at the first contact, the way it always does, but a second later he relaxes into his husband kissing him. When Sebastian starts to pull away, Kurt's mouth follows his, and Sebastian gives in, sitting back down on the bed.

Coffee can wait a little while longer.

Sometimes Kurt doesn't remember that Sebastian lives with him at the hospital now, in an annex specifically designed for families with members battling long-term illnesses. Sometimes Kurt doesn't remember how he takes his coffee. Sometimes Kurt doesn't remember that his favorite food is cheesecake or that he's allergic to kiwis. But that's okay. Sebastian remembers.

And Kurt remembers Sebastian; that's all that matters.

This time, when Sebastian leaves – when he stops kissing his husband and goes down the hallway to get his coffee - he knows Kurt will know who he is when he comes back.


End file.
